The Wanganui Chronicle MONDAY, JUNE 11, 1934. LIMITATION OF ENTRANTS TO PROFESSIONS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 136, 11 June 1934, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle MONDAY, JUNE 11, 1934. LIMITATION OF ENTRANTS TO PROFESSIONS

r pilE prospect ol very able Jewish-German doctors who have been driven from Germany seeking homes in New Zealand is causing the medical profession considerably perturbation; for if. is realised that when the number of medical practitioners increase there is every prospect of the individual medical practitioner’s income going down. The situation is hardly to be met by imposing restrictions upon these highly qualified men, because the public is entitled to have at its disposal the highest degree of expert skill that is available. The wealthy man may travel to those centres where the standards of medical and surgieai skill are very high. To place limitations on skill coining to New Zealand would, therefore, put a premium on lesser competence and rob people of moderate means of the standard of skill which would otherwise be available to them. The problem, however, cannot he thus easily disposed of; Lor a degree of limitation “in the interests of the profession,” has been noticeable within recent years in more than one profession. This has taken the form of stiffening up the various entrance and matriculation examinations, and the making of the qualifications for entrance to those professions harder to attain. In the latter ease the end has been sought by stiffening up the examination papers and by marking the papers more harshly. With the members of the New Zealand public excluded from the ranks of the professions by these means it would be hard indeed if foreigners were able, to come and take the places denied the native born. • But even this does not exhaust the subject for, at base, the question of the right of a profession or trade to limit the number of entrants by any means save a fair ability test, has yet to be determined. The wharf labourers seek to exclude from the employment on the wharves the man who is in search of a job, by declaring that the ranks of the union are closed. The trades unionist seeks to preserve his market by seeking in awards limitations in the employment of apprentices. The chemists and the accountants have stiffened up their examinations, and the difficulty in securing passes in these professions has become noticeable. The legal profession has enlarged the area of examinations. and now the dental and medical professions arc taking stock of (he situation. All of these exclusive efforts are made with the objective of securing a degree of monopoly for those who are already members of the callings, trades and professions concerned, and from (heir point of view it can be understood. But is it desirable from a community point of view ? The qualifying examination is by no means a test of the kind of practitioner any ore individual is going to be. Good students often make poor practitioners, and vice versa. Limitation works against the maximum of efficiency in any calling, and in this the general community should have something to say, for its interests are adversely affected. In such callings as retailing the qualification is the ability of the individual to become possessed of sufficient capital. If having secured the capital, skill is then not enough to enable the individual to sustain his position, then bankruptcy follows and he loses his place. The public, by the exercise of their patronage, decide which retailer is best serving them, and the public is entitled to have just as wide a choice in selection of its wharf labourers and lawyers, its doctors, and its drainlayers, its dentits and its dietitians, its chemists and its chiropractors and its chiropodists.